How to Actually Do All the Things You Thought Freelancing Would Free You to Do

You start freelance blogging because you want to be in control of your own schedule. Now you’ll have time to do all the things you never had time for before: Exercise! Hobbies! Playing with your kids! Volunteering! Taking classes!

Then reality gives you a slap in the face.

You discover that freelance blogging consists of more than writing witty posts whenever the inspiration hits, while sipping java in your beautifully appointed home office. You also need to create a content calendar. Pitch guest posts. Market your blogging services to prospects. Build your list. Socialize your posts. Network with influencers. Do invoicing and accounting and taxes. Not to mention develop eyeball-grabbing headlines and source amazing images for your posts.

So it still feels like you’re working 24-7, and you still have no time to actually live the rest of your (non-work) life.

The good news is that you can make the time for full-time blogging and all the other things you want to do, see, experience, and create as well. Here’s how.

1: Get Real

We all have 168 hours in a week. Even if you work 40 hours per week and sleep eight hours a night, that leaves 72 hours per week free and clear for your non-work goals.

Yes: That means you actually do have time to go on an hour-long run every day, volunteer several hours per week, work on your art or your music each day, read great books, and take a class in a topic you’re interested in.

Right now you’re probably saying, “I wish I worked 40 hours per week…it’s more like 80. And childcare and housework duties suck up the rest of my time.”

But time use studies show us that people routinely overestimate how much time they spend at work, overshoot on their guesses of how much housework and childcare they do, and underestimate how much they sleep. No finger-pointing here: We don’t do it on purpose. In a culture where being underslept and working crazy hours is a badge of pride, we tend to unconsciously skew the numbers (by a lot).

The solution: Track your time for one week. You can create a chart yourself, or download one of the many free time-tracking apps like Toggl (for web, desktop, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Linux) or Everhour (web-based only).

Then, tally up how many hours you actually spend working, cleaning the house, running errands, and taking care of your kids. (And if you do indeed spend 16 hours per day at your desk, analyze whether you’re actually working all those hours, or are falling down the Facebook-Twitter-Buzzfeed spiral or getting up every 30 minutes to have a snack.)

Just knowing how many hours of free time are going unnoticed in your week can give you a sense of freedom, expansion, and possibility. And that leads to the next step…

2: Don’t Let Other People Control Your Schedule

I once coached a writer (let’s call her Lisa) who wanted to run a 5k, but she didn’t have enough free time in her schedule to train.

After chatting with Lisa a bit, I noticed that she had phone interviews scattered throughout the day. For example, she’d interview someone at 11 am and then have another call at 12:15.

It ended up she did have the time to train, but it was in 15-minute bits here and 25-minute bits there due to her interview schedule.

I discovered that Lisa’s M.O. was to reach out to an interview subject and ask, “When can you do an interview?” Then she’d accept whatever time they threw out there. We decided that instead of letting her sources suggest times for the calls, from now on Lisa would offer times that worked for her, so she could stack up her interviews early in the day and then have a stretch of free time to train.

The moral of the story: If you let other people control your schedule and try to fit your goals into the time that’s left over, chances are you’ll never get to work on your goals at all.

Here are some other ways to take back control of your calendar:

Schedule your priorities.

Decide what your goals are, schedule them into your calendar, and fit everything else around them. Usually we do the opposite, and it’s amazing how many “urgent-but-not-important” tasks — like breathless emails from clients and babysitting requests from friends– come along to fill up our weeks.

Set up standing appointments.

If you wait until you need a service before you schedule it — such as oil changes, HVAC maintenance checks, vet visits, hair cuts, and dentist appointments — you’ll probably have to accept an appointment time that’s not convenient to you, and then you won’t have that time slot open for your more important goals.

Instead, schedule standing appointments where you can; for example, your cat is scheduled for a checkup every first Wednesday in June at 8 am, before the start of your work day. You get your hair cut and colored every eighth Saturday at 5:30 pm, after you’ve come back from a day trip with your family. You get the idea!

Negotiate your deadlines.

If you blog for clients, try to negotiate deadlines so that you don’t have a bunch of posts due in one week and then zilch for the next three weeks, which puts a big cramp in your ability to schedule other goals.

Try saying, “I already have a post due that day, and want to make sure I have the time and focus to do a great job on yours. Could I turn it the following Monday?” When you couch your request in terms of benefits to your client or employer, they’re more likely to agree.

Believe me — having been a freelance writer for the last two decades, I know this works. Clients typically build in a lot of buffer time to fend against flaky freelancers who miss deadlines. Your clients know you’re not flaky (right?) so they should be fine giving you a few extra days.

Batch your tasks.

We talked about doing this with calls, but it’s amazing how many other tasks lend themselves to batching.

For example, run all your errands at the same time every week — you can race around town and pick up your dry cleaning, get your groceries, fill the tank, and hit the post office. Use an app like Buffer to schedule all your social media posts at once. Write all your guest post pitches in one day every week, and do all your following up in one hour a few days later.

If you batch your to-dos wherever you can, you’ll be left with big stretches of free time instead of a few minutes here and there.

Once you have control over your schedule, you’ll find you have plenty of time to go after everything you hope to do in your life — not just your blogging-related goals.

3: Analyze Your Schedule

We humans build up habits because they’re efficient and they make our lives easier. Each day is filled with hundreds of decisions, so our brains streamline the process so we don’t have to stop dead in our tracks to decide whether to have cereal or eggs for breakfast (we always have eggs!) or when to work (we always work from 9 to 5!).

We tend to build our habits around the stats quo, because it’s the easiest route. But as freelance writers, our lives aren’t the status quo, so often these habits don’t work for us as well as they could.

The trick to creating free time for your other goals is to sit down and analyze your days. Take a look at every single thing you do each day, from making your morning cuppa to setting your alarm at night. Ask yourself:

Is this the best time to do this thing?

Can I make the process more efficient?

Does this thing need to take as much time as it normally does?

Can I outsource it?

Does this thing need to be done at all?

You may come up with solutions like this:

Since I’m a freelance blogger who works at home, and not a construction worker who toils in the hot sun all day, I don’t need to shower every day.

Instead of hitting the supermarket to pick up a few items every day, I can plan our meals and order my groceries online once a week.

I can exercise in the afternoon when I’m not doing my best work anyway, and save the productive morning hours for writing.

Just because the non-freelancing world works eight hours a day doesn’t mean I have to. In fact, I can get all my work done in just three hours if I focus!

Our dinner process is inefficient. I’ll look up slow cooker recipes that I can double so I’m spending less time at the stove every day.

I feel great on seven hours of sleep, even though my body wants to lounge in bed for nine hours. I’ll start setting my alarm for 15 minutes earlier every day until I’m snoozing just seven hours per night.

Remember, what works for other people doesn’t necessarily work for you. Make sure your habits are serving you, even if that means you have to break away from the status quo schedule your 9-5 friends follow. That way, you can make time for your other important goals.

4: Race Against the Clock

We writers tend to stall, procrastinate, and wait for inspiration to strike before we start writing. Then we wonder why it takes a week to craft a post or a sales pitch, and why we have no time for all those other things we were hoping to accomplish once we finally went freelance.

Guess what? You can will yourself to move faster.

For example:

Set a goal to fill your social media queue for the week in two hours.

A couple of weeks ago, I designed, wrote, and put up a brand-new website for my new book in under four hours. Yes, it can be done!

Challenge yourself to answer every email that comes your way in five lines or less.

I know people who can write a 1,000-word post in an hour. If they can do it, so can you!

If you cold call prospects to offer your blogging services, see if you can jam through 20 calls in an hour. That’s 3 minutes per call, and since you’ll mostly leave voicemails, it’s a very doable goal. Voila — if you work an eight-hour day, you’ve now freed up seven hours!

The secret is to decide that you’re going to move faster, and then set challenges for yourself. It should not take a week to write a post, or a full day to make 20 cold calls! Break through that mental barrier and you’ll find you have plenty of time for all your other goals.

5: Know That It Gets Easier

Finally, keep in mind that freelance blogging gets easier the more experience you have. Eventually, you’ll have a roster of reliable clients who come to you with work. You’ll enjoy a network of other bloggers who are happy to share your guest posts and spread the word about your blog so you’re not always in pitch mode.

The initial push to get started as a freelance blogger is always intense and time-consuming. Keep at the blogging, learn the ropes, gain experience…and you’ll find you have more time to reach for your other goals, whether they’re to travel more, spend more time with your family, or just relax and enjoy life.

That’s why you started freelancing in the first place…and you can make it happen.

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About Linda Formichelli

Linda Formichelli has been a full-time freelance writer since 1997. Visit Linda's website to learn more about her content strategy and writing.

Comments

When I started freelancing, I had glorious visions of having SO much free time, and I wound up feeling as though I had even less than I had previously had! (I’m glad it’s not just me.) Making it work definitely involves conscious efforts in managing your time and being efficient.

I love the breadth of advice that you’ve shared here. I wish I’d had this article to read when I started!

Your #4 really hits home. Facing the fear of cold calling can cause me to spend waaayyyy too long on it. Every distraction imaginable fills the time between calls. And what a satisfying feeling it is to just get on with it and get it done.

And there is Parkinson’s Law – “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Setting a tight but reasonable constraint helps get the job done.

I agree with you Linda that we can speed up if we set our heart to it. Last Friday I set up my writer’s website in 3 hrs flat. I had the domain name lying with me for the past 8 months!!
BTW, great book…
I am working my way through it.

“You can will yourself to move faster.” Yes, SO true. In fact, I do this on almost a weekly basis, when I spend more time than I should messing around on Monday-Wednesday, panic, and then cram all the projects into the end of the week. Now I need to start willing myself to move faster in a GOOD way. Thanks for the tips. 🙂

Love this! I have limited hours to work during the day between when my kids are dropped off and picked up from daycare. I struggle to make the most of my time, especially since I also have to stop every 2-3 hours to pump breastmilk for my 8 month old. These are great tips that I’m hoping will help me organize my working hours a bit better. Thanks!

Thank you Sophie and Linda! This post is full of actionable, realistic tips written in a friendly, humorous manner. I’m know I’m guilty of using my time less than optimally and this is a great kick in the pants!

I didn’t bother to shower today, much to the dismay of my boyfriend (he doesn’t thank you for your post!)

More seriously though, I loved reading about task batching because I am very guilty of just accepting whatever time the client wants to chat, whether or not it works for me. It’s difficult to get over that nervousness of asking for a different time or deadline, but the way you worded it as a benefit to the client is a great tip!

My only question about this article is regarding the 1000 words in one hour goal… I have done this before, but I always find I am happier with the final product if I take at least 2 hours for this word count. Am I slow? Any thoughts from the community?

I have had the “imitate the status quo” problem many times; it can be so easy to start feeling guilty if your day isn’t “full up” with work. We are so naturally hard on ourselves, especially when we have to take full responsibility for deciding what we do when!

This is an excellent article! I’ve read so many articles on productivity that don’t offer much practical advice, but this is chock-full of real, actionable steps we can take to make every day better than the last. Thanks so much!

My husband and I just discussed scheduling our time so we won’t be on others’ schedules! Having standing schedules for haircuts, oil changes, etc. sounds very effective too. Thanks for sharing the info!

Hi Linda,
All the best for the success of your latest book.
I love #1 and #4.
I’ve started tracking my day every 30 minutes and it’s a revelation about how often I get off track and for how long.
Ignorance is NOT bliss.

Love it! Love it! Love it! I’m an independent contractor for a business development company and I am venturing into my own freelance blogging business. I am still preparing, reading lots of information to avoid making many mistakes others made when starting out. I’ll be there one of these days (hopefully soon). I currently do control my schedule – the amount of hours I work weekly and when I work these hours (so long as it is during normal business hours in the time zone I am calling). Don’t get me wrong, the pay is great, but I could use more control, especially deciding where I want to work from each day (not being confined to my office) and if I want to work during or outside of normal business hours. I have to start thinking differently. I keep saying I can’t have it all, but like you said, I can have it all! Great read! Will definitely start tracking my time!

Linda,
Thank you for sharing your well-earned tips. I’m glad the title included more than already established freelance bloggers. Your pointers can apply to anyone who wants to make a difference in their time!

thank you for the post, I found it to be inspiring, well thought out, and very useful. best of luck with the book, may have to pick up a copy. I liked the idea of actually making a calendar and blocking in time each day for tasks, I will definitely use this.

This is an excellent article, Linda, thank you!
I am guilty of spending the initial and most productive hours of my day on content curation and emails, while leaving my novel as the last thing on my list , so (surprise, surprise!), I never get to it.
I have discovered that only opening Outlook at designated times and leaving my phone on flight mode while working is a great way to get more productive.

Personally, I’m great at creating schedules, but not quite as good at following them! So analyzing my schedule could be a great way to figure out how to create one that will actually work for me!!

I know that early morning (i.e. before 11) is not my time to shine, so this would be a great time to get my errands done and exercise. Then when I sit down to work later in the day, I won’t waste time beating myself up for not getting my work done earlier, and those everyday activities will get done to boot!!

Hmm. I’ll get started on this tomorrow. Hopefully it will set me on the right track going into next week.

I would like to get into the copywriting business, as it would allow me to manage my time much better than in my current freelance translation career. Translation has turned to something like an emergency surgeon’s job; the majority of clients expect us to start the jobs immediately and finish them within shorter and shorter periods of time. The rates are a bit low and the clients’ demands are sky-rocketing. So I hope I can make a change at least partially. Thanks for the great post, Linda.

Thanks for a great post! I have what I call “chronic fear-induced procrastination.” I do believe that with a little more planning, structure and some clearly defined goals, I can propel myself into an excuse free work methodology and lifestyle.

So true, especially in the early days of freelancing. Striking the balance between what work to accept and when to say no is hard enough while you are adjusting to the lack of monthly pay-cheque security, but to be able to take control and fully structure your ‘business’ / make time for what you wanted to get out of freelancing to start with? Reaaaally tricky…